... and by complex I mean that everybody is a possible suspect EXCEPT Dr. Ordway, his nurse, and the police. And up to the end I'm not that sure about Ordway's nurse! The film opens on a young couple seeking Ordway's (Warner Baxter's) advice on whether or not to marry. Jimmy Trotter (Lloyd Bridges) is a young man who was convicted of murdering his employer with poison. Ordway helped him get a new trial, and he was acquitted. Ordway's advice is to wait until Jimmy can get a job with a large company. Ordway does not like the fact that Jimmy is currently working for a wealthy individual as a personal secretary, which is exactly the same job he had when he was accused of murdering his employer before.Soon thereafter Ordway decides to visit Jimmy at his place of employment. However, the maid thinks Ordway is either the coroner or with the police. You see, Jimmy's employer has just suddenly died and it looks like poison again. Ordway goes along with the ruse to get access to the crime scene and yes, it appears that Walter Burns drank poisoned coffee.Next, the real police arrive, and this is where things get strange. The police go all "Boston Blackie" on Dr. Ordway. In spite of the fact that he has been a welcome help in other cases, they get tough with him, like he is in the way and completely unwelcome. They even imply he is helping Jimmy - who they try to arrest but escapes - evade arrest.Well Jimmy did at least one thing he probably should not have done, he went ahead and married his fiancée Ellen against Dr. Ordway's advice. It doesn't help Ordway that the Burns mansion is filled with suspects - the young widow, the victim's brother and nephew who both circle like sharks, a maid who has been carrying a torch for the dead Mr. Burns for 30 years to the point that her mind has become effected, and a cook who turns out to be an imposter and flees the Burns household when Ordway calls her on her impersonation. The point is, by the end of the film you are suspecting all of these people including Jimmy and his wife.The one odd thing in this film - Jimmy and Ellen have just gotten married a day or two earlier, yet their house looks like the set of "I Love Lucy" - it is completely decorated with frilly curtains, comfy couch, and well stocked kitchen as Ellen parades around in stylish house-dress and frilly apron like she has been a housewife for five years, not five days! Highly recommended as a good entry in the Crime Doctor series.

The early Crime Doctor films were a great training ground for Columbia's up and coming young actors and actresses. Like Lloyd Bridges and Lynn Merrick who in this entry play a young couple who call on Dr. Ordway to see if he can advise them on their future. Jimmy Trotter was once on trial for murder and is forever in Ordway's debt for getting him a new trial (for which he was found not guilty). Ordway is concerned that he has put himself in the same working situation that he was in before his trial but before he can see Burns to ask him why he took a chance on Jimmie who has been shunned by society, Burns is murdered.Jimmie has really nothing to do with this intricately plotted entry, he is just a red herring, there to throw the scent off the real murderer. It is a story of revenge, inheritances and pent up grievances. There is icy Mrs. Byrnes (Rose Hobart) who has only been married a year and a pixilated housekeeper, Miss Patricia (Virginia Brissac) whose dreams hold the key to the mystery. She knows that the cook isn't really a cook but Burn's old partner's daughter who, disguised as domestic help, has come to the house for answers about her missing father. Jimmy, of course, brings suspicion on himself by fleeing from the house when the police van rolls up. Ellen (Jimmie's fiancée) also throws suspicion on herself when Ordway gives her a piece of vital evidence yet within seconds she drops it and her apologies don't sound sincere. After that she always seemed to look guilty but maybe that was just a case of bad acting on Merrick's part.Miss Patricia's hypnosis sessions with the good doctor has all paths leading to a disused night club - the Golden Nights. Over 30 years before it was a thriving theatre and Patricia was the dancing star who overhears a quarrel between Burns and his partner, Fenton, who was eager to get home because his wife was about to have a baby.In the early Crime Doctor entries Ordway was very hands on (in the later entries he seemed to be around only as a help to the police) and in this one he is at the front of the action when everyone converges on the old theatre where a skeleton is found as well as a hidden safe that interests the murderer very much. Thomas E. Jackson had played slow talking Sergeant Flaherty in "Little Caesar" and received a life sentence where he was destined to play officers of the law for the next three decades - he was terrific though, as was Barton Maclane. This was Gloria Dickson's next to last role. She had given a sensitive performance in "They Won't Forget" (all the publicity went to Lana Turner though) but was destined for a career of tough dames. She was playing a woman of 31 in this movie and really looked it, however in reality she was only 26. Constance Worth (Ordway's receptionist) had a noteworthy career in Australia as Jocelyn Howarth where she had starring parts in her first films - "The Squatter's Daughter" and "The Silence of Dean Maitland".

Warner Baxter is the "Crime Doctor," and here he is in the second film of the series, "Crime Doctor's Strangest Case," filmed in 1943. This one has a perk for baby boomers as it stars a very young Lloyd "Sea Hunt" Bridges as a man acquitted of killing his boss who consults Dr. Ordway (Baxter), the man who helped him in his case. Though he was found not guilty, he has had terrible trouble finding a new position. Now he's been offered a job working for a person instead of a company - a similar situation to his first job, and he wants to get married. Ordway recommends that he look instead for a corporate position, even if he has to leave town, and wait to get married.The Bridges character doesn't take Dr. O's advice, and when his boss is killed, it does look as though he was given the job so he could be framed. Ordway steps in to investigate, dueling wits with the detective in charge of the case (Barton MacLaine).This "Crime Doctor" has some comedy in it, with Jerome Cowan as a musician who is careless with matches. There's also a hilarious, very fast change of identity.This is a good series, and I hope to see more of it on TCM.

Crime Doctor's Strangest Case, The (1943) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Second film in Columbia's Crime Doctor series has the psychiatrist (Warner Baxter) trying to solve the murder of a real estate agent. All fingers point to a man (Lloyd Bridges) who the crime doctor got off of murder charges the year before. This second film is certainly better than the first film but it's still not top-notch mystery. Baxter seems a little bit more at ease here but again, his performance isn't anything that really jumps off the screen. Bridges steals the film as the man who knows his past will make him look guilty here. The rest of the supporting cast is pretty forgettable as is most of the mystery but at 68-minutes it never gets too slow.